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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 42
Volume 15, Issue 42 Atari Online News, Etc. October 25, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1542 10/25/13
~ Wozniak Isn't Impressed ~ People Are Talking! ~ Twitter IPO Valuation
~ Bromium Raises Capital ~ Bioshock Infinite Back! ~ Alvin Gottlieb Dies
~ PS4 New, Needs Update! ~ Coaching Brazilian Pols! ~ Mavericks Is Free!
~ Silicon Valley Poaching ~ See How You're Monitored ~ Google Ad Experiment!
-* Germany Wants German Internet *-
-* White House Official Fired Over Tweets *-
-* Facebook To Warn Users of Violent Content! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
If the temps were an indicator, it would be much later in the year!
However, we've begun the annual "Fall Classic" tradition - the World
Series is upon us. Sorry folks, but living in the Northeast, I'm
rooting for the Red Sox! But, I will admit that it's going to be a
tough series; the Cardinals team is a good one! I predict the Sox
win it in six games!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - PS4 Won't Play Blu-rays Or DVDs Out of The Box!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 'Bioshock Infinite' Is Heading Back to Rapture!
Pinball Pioneer Alvin Gottlieb Dies At 86!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
PlayStation 4 Won't Play Blu-rays Or DVDs Out of The Box
When the PlayStation 4 launches on November 15th, there will be a software
update already waiting for new owners and that update is necessary to
enjoy some of the console's most basic functions. Chief among these
features is the ability to play Blu-ray discs or DVDs, which won't be
possible until the update is installed. You also won't be able to utilize
Remote Play, which lets gamers play PS4 games on a PS Vita, while other
missing features include the ability to play games as they're being
downloaded, recording and uploading gameplay using the console's new
sharing features, and being able to use voice chat while playing games
with friends. Of course, these features will be available once you
install the 300MB update, but for those looking to simply enjoy their
shiny new PS4 straightaway, they'll be in for a bit of a wait instead.
'Bioshock Infinite' Is Heading Back to Rapture
You'll be able to visit Rapture again very soon. 2K Games announced that
the first episode of Bioshock Infinite's "Burial at Sea" downloadable
add-on, which was revealed in July, will be launching on November 12th
for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC for $14.99. In addition to taking
players back to the underwater setting of the original Bioshock, "Burial
at Sea" also changes the gameplay up somewhat, with a focus on stealth
and managing resources. No date has been announced for the second
episode of the two-part story. "This is a love letter to the fans, but
it's also the beginning of a story that will give gamers a new
perspective on the Bioshock universe," says creative director Ken Levine.
If you just can't wait for November, Irrational has released a video
detailing the first five minutes of the upcoming adventure.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
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Pinball Pioneer Alvin Gottlieb Dies At 86
Pinball pioneer and inventor Alvin J. Gottlieb died on Oct. 14 in
Florida. He was 86.
Alvin was the son of David Gottlieb, who in 1927 founded the eponymous D.
Gottlieb & Co. pinball and arcade game factory in Chicago. Alvin was born
the same year his father opened the factory where he would spend almost
four decades building pinball machines. Pinball discussion and fan sites,
like Pinside.com, lit up last week with condolences and praise for Alvin.
D. Gottlieb & Co. first produced mechanical tables and later made
electromechanical pin games starting in 1935. Among its many
achievements, Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty (1947) is considered by industry
historians to be its most important release because the machine included
flippers. While flippers were already used on many games prior to 1947,
they were the same manually operated bats used on baseball arcade games.
Humpty Dumpty, however, was the first game made with electromechanical
flippers, and this innovation gave players the ability to shoot the ball
back up the playfield to get more points. Gottlieb's most popular
pinball machine was Baffle Ball (1931).
D. Gottlieb & Co. began making solid-state tables in the late 1970s. The
first of these were remakes of its electromechanical properties like
Joker Poker and Charlie's Angels. In 1977, Gottlieb was bought by
Columbia Pictures. After Coca-Cola Co. had acquired Columbia in 1983, the
amusement machine assets were transferred to a Coke subsidiary, Mylstar
Electronics, but this move was short-lived. By 1984, the arcade
videogame industry in North America had crashed, and Coca-Cola sought to
divest itself of Mylstar. The Gottlieb pinball assets were bought out by
a management group, which would continue to manufacture pin games under
the corporate name Premier Technology.
Alvin Gottlieb would later return the family name to the pinball industry,
but on a first-name basis. After the collapse of coin-op video in the
mid-1980s, pinball experienced a comeback. Alvin G. & Co. was one of
several new manufacturers entering the field; Capcom Pinball and Data
East Pinball (funded by Japan's Data East) were among the others
entering the segment, which was still dominated by Williams Electronics.
The end of the 1990s saw another downturn in the industry, with Alvin G.
and Capcom Pinball closing in 1996. Premier Technology, whose games still
carried the original Gottlieb name, also shut down; Barb Wire was the
last Gottlieb game. That same year, Data East's pinball division was
acquired by Sega and became Sega Pinball. By 1997, Sega Pinball and
Williams were the only pinball companies left. In 1999, Sega sold its
pinball division to Gary Stern, president of Sega Pinball at the time,
who renamed the company Stern Pinball. By this time, Williams was only
selling about 4,000 units, and it eventually exited the pinball business.
Alvin G. & Co. created and produced about a dozen pinball machine titles
between 1991 and 1996; A.G. Soccer-Ball, an uncommon head-to-head flipper
game, was its first and Slam 'N Jam was the last. Alvin Gottlieb was
inducted into the Pinball Hall of Fame during at 2006 Pinball Expo.
He is survived by his children Laura, Daniel, Michael and Joseph;
grandchildren Stephan, Lisa, Aryeh, Zvi, Nathan, Noah, Mitchell and
Maxwell; and great-grandchildren Mordechai, Ayla and Eden.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
White House Official Fired Over Anonymous Tweets
A senior White House official who was helping negotiate nuclear issues
with Iran has been fired after being unmasked as the acidic voice behind
a Twitter account known for its insults of public figures at the White
House and on Capitol Hill, a government official said on Tuesday.
Jofi Joseph was director of nuclear non-proliferation on the White House
National Security Council staff, but for more than two years sent
hundreds of anonymous and abrasive tweets using the handle @NatSecWonk.
He was fired last week after he was caught, the official said.
A White House official confirmed Joseph no longer worked there, but would
not comment on personnel matters. The firing was first reported by the
website Daily Beast.
In his Twitter biography, now removed from the social networking site,
Joseph described himself as a "keen observer of the foreign policy and
national security scene" who "unapologetically says what everyone else
only thinks."
As the widely followed @NatSecWonk, Joseph speculated anonymously about
the political motives and career moves of administration officials he
worked with. They included Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's spokesman
on national security issues.
This month, Joseph tweeted that Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of
state, "had few policy goals and no wins" in the Middle East. He agreed
with Republican Representative Darrell Issa, who has relentlessly pursued
Clinton for administration actions after last year's attack on the U.S.
diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
"Look, Issa is an ass, but he's on to something here with the
@HillaryClinton whitewash of accountability for Benghazi," he tweeted.
He also sniped at U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power's
use of Twitter. "Can someone again brief @AmbassadorPower that Bashar
Assad likely doesn't follow her Twitter feed?" he recently wrote.
Joseph did not respond to phone and email requests for comment, but he
told the website Politico he regretted his tweets.
"What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed
over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I
bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to
everyone I insulted," Joseph said in an email to Politico.
He also targeted journalists, including Daily Beast reporter Josh Rogin
who broke the story of his firing. "Just a hunch, but I have the sense
lots of people would like to punch @joshrogin in the face," he said
earlier this month.
Germany Wants A German Internet As Spying Scandal Rankles
As a diplomatic row rages between the United States and Europe over spying
accusations, state-backed Deutsche Telekom wants German communications
companies to cooperate to shield local internet traffic from foreign
intelligence services.
Yet the nascent effort, which took on new urgency after Germany said on
Wednesday that it had evidence that Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile
phone had been monitored, faces an uphill battle if it is to be more than
a marketing gimmick.
It would not work when Germans surf on websites hosted on servers abroad,
such as social network Facebook or search engine Google, according to
interviews with six telecom and internet experts. Deutsche Telekom could
also have trouble getting rival broadband groups on board because they
are wary of sharing network information.
More fundamentally, the initiative runs counter to how the Internet works
today - global traffic is passed from network to network under free or
paid-for agreements with no thought for national borders.
If more countries wall themselves off, it could lead to a troubling
"Balkanisation" of the Internet, crippling the openness and efficiency
that have made the web a source of economic growth, said Dan Kaminsky, a
U.S. security researcher.
Controls over internet traffic are more commonly seen in countries such
as China and Iran where governments seek to limit the content their people
can access by erecting firewalls and blocking Facebook and Twitter.
"It is internationally without precedent that the internet traffic of a
developed country bypasses the servers of another country," said Torsten
Gerpott, a professor of business and telecoms at the University of
Duisburg-Essen.
"The push of Deutsche Telekom is laudable, but it's also a public
relations move."
Deutsche Telekom, which is 32 percent owned by the government, has
received backing for its project from the telecoms regulator for
potentially giving customers more options.
In August, the company also launched a service dubbed "E-mail made in
Germany" that encrypts email and sends traffic exclusively through its
domestic servers.
Government snooping is a sensitive subject in Germany, which has among the
strictest privacy laws in the world, since it dredges up memories of
eavesdropping by the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany, where
Merkel grew up.
The issue dominated discussions at a European summit on Thursday,
prompting Merkel to demand that the U.S. strike a "no-spying" agreement
with Berlin and Paris by the end of the year.
As the row festers, telecom and Internet experts said the rhetoric
exceeded the practical changes that could be expected from Deutsche
Telekom's project. More than 90 percent of Germany's internet traffic
already stays within its borders, said Klaus Landefeld, a board member of
the non-profit organization that runs the DE-CIX Internet exchange point
in Frankfurt.
Others pointed out that Deutsche Telekom's preference for being paid by
other Internet networks for carrying traffic to the end user, instead of
"peering" agreements at no cost, clashed with the goal to keep traffic
within Germany. It can be cheaper or free for German traffic to go
through London or Amsterdam, where it can be intercepted by foreign
spies.
Thomas Kremer, the executive in charge of data privacy and legal affairs
for the German operator, said the group needed to sign connection
agreements with three additional operators to make a national routing
possible. "If this were not the case, one could think of a legislative
solution," he said.
"As long as sender and receiver are in the Schengen area or in Germany,
traffic should no longer be routed through other countries," Kremer said,
referring to the 26-country passport-free zone in Europe.
A spokesman for Telefonica Germany said it was in early discussions on
national routing with other groups. A spokesman for Vodafone said it was
"evaluating if and how" to implement the Deutsche Telekom proposal.
Although Deutsche Telekom is positioning itself as a safe custodian of
user data, its track record on privacy is mixed. In a 2008 affair dubbed
Telekomgate, Klaus Trzeschan, a security manager at the group, was
jailed for three and a half years for his role in monitoring phone calls
of the firm's own management and supervisory board members, as well as
business reporters.
A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom said the affair was the reason why the
group worked "so hard" on privacy and security issues in recent years.
"We are now the leading company of our industry when it comes to
customers' trust," he said.
While the routers and switches that direct traffic can be programmed so
data travel certain routes, the most popular online services are not built
to respect borders.
Web companies often rely on a few large data centers to power their entire
operation, and they don't choose locations based on the location of their
customers but on factors such as the availability of cheap power, cool
climates, and high-speed broadband networks.
For example, if a Munich resident uses Facebook to chat with a friend
sitting 500 kilometers (310 miles) away in Berlin, the traffic would go
through one of the company's three massive data centers 8,000 km away in
Oregon or North Carolina, or one near the Arctic Circle in the Swedish
town of Luleå. European users' profiles are not necessarily stored in
the Swedish centre; instead the website's different functions such as
games, messaging, and wall posts are distributed among the data centers
to improve efficiency.
Similarly, emails sent by Google's Gmail between two German residents
would probably be routed through one of the company's three data centers
in Finland, Belgium and Ireland.
The only way to change this would be for Germany to require local hosting
of websites, a drastic move according to experts that has not yet been
pushed by German leaders. Deutsche Telekom declined to say whether it
would lobby for such an approach.
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, angered by reports that the U.S. spied
on her and other Brazilians, is pushing legislation that would force
Google, Facebook and other internet companies to store locally gathered
or user-generated data inside the country.
One solution would be for European leaders to beef up a new data-privacy
law, which has been in the works for almost two years. A greatly
toughened version of the law was backed by the European Parliament on
Monday, but it still requires agreement by members states.
France and Germany may succeed in getting member states to push ahead on
talks to complete the new data rules by 2015.
Deutsche Telekom's Kremer said the new law could help: "Of course
customers need to be able to use any web services they like, anywhere in
the world. But we need to make this safer."
Cyber-attack Fighter Bromium Raises $40 Million in Financing
Bromium Inc, a firm that helps corporations fight cyber attacks, said on
Wednesday it has raised $40 million in financing in a round led by
Meritech Capital Partners.
Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, Highland
Capital Partners and Intel Capital expanded their investments in the
company.
Bromium has raised a total of $75.7 million since it was founded in 2010
in Cupertino, California.
Bromium is one of dozens of startups scattered from Silicon Valley to
Israel that offer businesses alternatives to traditional anti-virus
software, firewalls and other old-school computer security products that
have proven ineffective in fending off increasingly sophisticated cyber
attacks.
Its technology protects users with micro "virtual" machines that aim to
prevent equipment from getting infected if websites or email are tainted
with malicious software.
Bromium, which has a research facility in Cambridge, England, counts the
New York Stock Exchange and Automatic Data Processing Inc among its
customers.
Facebook Works To Warn Users About Violent Content
Facebook announced Tuesday it was working on new ways to keep users from
stumbling across gruesome content on its website following an outcry over
the discovery of beheading videos there.
The controversy which has drawn critical comment from British Prime
Minister David Cameron illustrates the difficulty of setting a universal
standard across the social network used by 1 billion people. Facing sharp
criticism, Facebook Inc. issued a statement clarifying that violent
videos were only allowed if they were presented as news or held up as
atrocities to be condemned.
"If they were being celebrated, or the actions in them encouraged, our
approach would be different," the company said in a statement. "However,
since some people object to graphic video of this nature, we are working
to give people additional control over the content they see. This may
include warning them in advance that the image they are about to see
contains graphic content."
Facebook banned beheading videos in May but recently lifted the
prohibition a development flagged by the BBC on Monday. A few groups
have since condemned the social network for potentially exposing users to
the violent content.
Cameron, whose right-leaning government has unveiled several initiatives
to censor objectionable content online, said Tuesday allowing the
beheading videos back on Facebook was "irresponsible."
Facebook's administrators face constant pressure from interest groups
trying to impose their own forms of censorship or fighting to lift
restrictions they see as oppressive. Women's rights groups want the
company to crack down on misogynistic content; others have ridiculed
Facebook's ban on the depiction of female breasts. Some believers have
urged the site ban what they see as blasphemous content, while others
decry what they claim is Facebook's censorship of pages critical of one
religion or the other.
Violent news content poses particularly thorny questions for a website
that allows children as young as 13 to join. Should photos of heroic
rescuers working during the Boston marathon bombings be banned because
some people object to the sight of gore? While images of torture and
abuse helped fuel the rage of the Arab pro-democracy demonstrators,
should they have been banned for being too bloody?
One free speech group said the fact that content is hard to watch didn't
mean it should be hidden.
"Films about beheadings may be deeply upsetting and offensive, but they
do expose the reality of violent acts that are taking place in the world
today," said Sean Gallagher of the London-based Index on Censorship.
"When trying to draw a line about what should or shouldn't be allowed,
it's important to look at context, not just content."
Facebook Executives Coach Brazil Politicians Before Internet Vote
As Brazil threatens to impose strict new regulations on American Internet
companies, Facebook offered some of its top politicians free advice this
week on how to win "friends" and maximize "likes" on their webpages.
Facebook's tips on using social media came as politicians geared up for a
2014 general election and as Congress prepared to vote on legislation
that could severely restrict the way companies like Facebook, Twitter and
Google operate in Brazil.
After revelations of U.S. government spying on Brazilian citizens and
companies, including President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil is rushing through
legislation that would oblige Internet companies to store information
about their Brazilian users in the country. The lower house of Congress
votes on the measure next Wednesday.
Internet companies and technology experts say the demand would be costly
and technically complicated.
With 76 million Facebook users, more than any other country outside the
United States and possibly India, Brazil is a key market for the San
Francisco-based social network. That also makes Facebook a powerful tool
for Brazilian politicians Seeking to win new supporters.
"That's such a huge voting block of citizens who are getting a lot of
their news and information from places like Facebook," said Katie
Harbath, Facebook's global manager for politics and government
engagement.
Harbath did not discuss Brazil's move to regulate Internet usage in her
coaching sessions, but she conducted them with Bruno Magrani, the
company's top lobbyist in Brasilia.
Harbath spent four days in capital instructing Brazilian lawmakers and
staffers in packed congressional rooms on how to maximize the "likes" on
their Facebook pages. She taught President Dilma Rousseff's online team
how boost her social media presence.
Before joining Facebook, Harbath was a digital strategist for the
Republican National Committee and the 2008 presidential campaign of former
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Some of Harbath's tips: don't post more than three times a day to avoid
boring potential supporters; be as authentic and personal as possible;
engage constituents in question-and-answer sessions, virtual town halls
that are so popular with U.S. congressmen that they call them Facebook
Fridays.
Above all, she advised, post content at the time of peak Facebook usage.
Compared with the United States, where usage peaks between 9 p.m. and
10 p.m., surveys show Facebook usage is heaviest in Brazil at lunchtime.
Harbath showed Brazilian politicians how to use Facebook metadata tools
to learn how many users visit their pages and at what time of the day.
In a telephone interview, she declined to comment on the impact of
Brazil's proposed Internet law.
Angered by reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitored
emails, phone calls and other communications of Brazilians with secret
Internet surveillance programs, Rousseff's government wants to force
foreign-based Internet companies to maintain data centers inside Brazil,
subject to Brazilian privacy laws.
Internet companies operating in Brazil are currently free to put data
centers wherever they like. Facebook Inc, for example, stores its global
data in the United States and a new complex in Sweden.
Business lobbies have written to lawmakers warning that the in-country
data storage requirements could exclude Brazilian Internet users from
cloud data storage services, shut off Brazil from the seamless flow of
global information and hinder its hopes of becoming a regional IT and
data center hub.
One lawmaker who met with Harbath, former Rio de Janeiro Governor Antony
Garotinho, said the requirement for local data centers must be dropped.
"I'm against it. How are you going to store in Brazil information on
Brazilians that is part of a worldwide network? It's kind of hard and I
think it's unlikely to happen."
Lawsuit Against Silicon Valley Hiring Practices Gets Class Action Status
A U.S. judge accorded class action status to a lawsuit that alleges broad
conspiracy among major Silicon Valley companies to suppress employee
compensation by not poaching each other's employees, a court filing
showed.
By winning the class certification, the plaintiffs would have more
leverage to extract larger financial settlements than if they were to sue
individually.
In 2011, five software engineers sued Adobe Systems Inc, Intel Corp, Apple
Inc and Google Inc among others over their hiring practices, alleging that
the Silicon Valley companies entered into an "overarching conspiracy" to
suppress employee compensation to artificially low levels.
The defendants were accused of violating the Sherman Act and Clayton Act
antitrust laws by conspiring to eliminate competition for labor, depriving
workers of job mobility and hundreds of millions of dollars in
compensation.
The case has been closely watched in the Silicon Valley, and much of it
has been built on email exchanges between top executives, including the
late Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and former Google Chief Executive
Eric Schmidt.
Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, in a ruling made available on
Thursday, also certified the proposed class of technical employees, which
includes software and hardware engineers, component designers,
application developers, among others.
The plaintiffs believe this proposed class includes more than 50,000
people, according to the filing.
In their original complaint, the plaintiffs sought certification of an
"All Employee" class, which included every salaried employee throughout
the United States who worked for the defendant companies between 2005 and
2009, estimated to be more than 100,000.
The plaintiffs limited their class action group after Judge Koh in April
said they have yet to show enough in common among the proposed class
members to allow them to sue together.
The case is In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, Case No.
11-02509, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
New Firefox Add-on Shows You How Your Browsing Is Being Monitored
Mozilla has developed a Firefox add-on called Lightbeam that could change
the way you look at your daily Internet activity. Mozilla says that
Lightbeam enables you to examine individual third parties over time and
space, identify where they connect to your online activity and provides
ways for you to engage with this unique view of the Web. As you browse,
your activity is constantly being monitored by third parties on the
websites you visit, often without any signs or warnings whatsoever.
Lightbeam delivers an interactive visualization of each third-party
element on the sites you visit, increasing in size with every new site you
travel to. All the information is stored locally as well and can be
removed instantly by uninstalling the add-on. Mozilla has been passionate
about Internet tracking for quite some time and hopes to illuminate the
Internet even further with Lightbeam, giving users a simple tool to keep
track of the countless connections occurring through their browsers every
day.
Twitter IPO Pegs Valuation at Modest $11 Billion
Seeking to avoid a repeat of Facebook Inc's much-maligned public debut,
Twitter Inc revealed more modest ambitions, saying its initial offering
would raise up to $1.6 billion and value the company at up to about $11
billion.
The valuation was more conservative than the $15 billion some analysts
had expected for the social media phenomenon, potentially attracting
investors who might consider the money-losing company's listing price a
better deal, with room to rise.
Twitter had signaled for weeks it would price its IPO modestly to avoid
the sort of stock plummet that spoiled Facebook's coming-out party. It
said on Thursday it intends to sell 70 million shares between $17 and $20
apiece, raking in up to $1.4 billion for the company.
If underwriters choose to sell an additional allotment of 10.5 million
shares, the offer could raise as much as $1.6 billion.
Twitter's offering will be the most high-profile Internet IPO since
Facebook's May 2012 debut, when the social network giant's shares fell
below their offering price and did not recover until a year later. Still,
the modest pricing doesn't obscure questions about Twitter's
profitability.
"The fact that the valuation is lower than expectations, I think was smart
by the underwriters. I think it will help the pop," said Michael Yoshikami
of Destinational Weath Management.
"But in the end, even for $11 billion, the question is can they come up
with earnings to substantiate that number? And it's unclear that they're
going to be able to do that."
At a roughly $11 billion valuation, Twitter would be worth more than Yelp
Inc and AOL Inc combined, but only a fraction of tech giants like Google
Inc and Apple Inc, worth $342 billion and $483 billion respectively.
Facebook's market value is now $128 billion.
Twitter and its underwriters begin a two-week road show to woo investors
next Monday in New York, with stops in Boston and the mid-Atlantic region
before touching down in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver,
according to a source familiar with the offering.
"They're trying to price this for a very strong IPO, ideally creating the
conditions for a solid after-market," said Pivotal Research Group's Brian
Wieser, who valued the company at $19 billion.
The company could choose to raise the price of the offering during that
period as it gauges interest. Twitter is expected to set a final price on
November 6, according to a document reviewed by Reuters, suggesting that
the stock could begin trading as early as November 7.
Sam Hamadeh of PrivCo, a private company research firm, said Twitter could
raise the price range and also the amount of shares being sold. But, he
added: "Raising both the price and the size was Facebook's fatal mistake."
Twitter's debut will cap seven years of explosive growth for an online
messaging service that counts heads of state and major celebrities among
its 230 million active users - but still operates at a loss.
Twitter will sell roughly 13 percent of the company in the IPO and will
have 544,696,816 shares outstanding after the offering. That figure could
rise given the exercising of options, restricted stock units and the
issuance of shares for compensation after the IPO.
The company plans to list its stock under the "TWTR" symbol on the New
York Stock Exchange.
Among the biggest Twitter shareholders selling in the offering is Rizvi
Traverse, a fund managed by secretive Connecticut-based investor Suhail
Rizvi, who has quietly amassed a 17.9 percent stake in Twitter with the
help of Silicon Valley investor Chris Sacca.
Rizvi's stake will fall to 15.6 percent of total shares outstanding after
the sale. JP Morgan Chase, which obtained Twitter shares through Rizvi and
Sacca, will see its stake fall to 9 percent from 10.3 percent.
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, the largest individual shareholder,
will reduce his stake to 10.4 percent from 12 percent, while Chief
Executive Dick Costolo will emerge with a 1.4 percent stake, compared with
1.6 percent currently.
Co-founder Jack Dorsey will also sell shares, as will early venture
capital investors Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Benchmark
Capital.
Because many early shareholders, including Williams, previously sold
parts of their stake to other investors like Rizvi, Twitter's relatively
fractured ownership structure looks markedly different from the likes of
Facebook and other tech companies dominated by their founders.
When Facebook went public last year, founder and chief executive Mark
Zuckerberg kept 57 percent of the company's voting shares, thanks to a
scheme that gave him twice the voting power of ordinary shareholders.
Following Twitter's IPO, Costolo will be under pressure to improve its
money-making ability. The eight-year-old company more than doubled its
third-quarter revenue to $168.6 million, but net losses widened to $64.6
million in the September quarter, it disclosed in a filing earlier this
month.
This month, Twitter secured a $1 billion credit line from its underwriters
including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Bank of America
Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.
In recent months the company has aggressively introduced a number of new
advertising products, including packages with broadcasters CBS and ESPN
that show ads on TV and Twitter simultaneously for the fall TV season.
Twitter has also sought to deepen its relationships with news
organizations, which provide much of the content shared on the network.
The company said Thursday that it hired NBC News digital executive
Vivian Schiller as the head of news.
Free! Why Apple's New OS X Mavericks, iLife, iWork Pricing Is A Big Deal
"YOU GET MAVERICKS! AND YOU GET MAVERICKS! EVERYBODY GETS MAVERICKS!"
Craig Federighi, Apple's VP of software engineering, may not have actually
said that, but he channeled Oprah Winfrey in spirit by giving away some of
his favorite things. OS X Mavericks, the newest operating system from
Apple, was released yesterday with no price tag attached. "We are going to
revolutionize pricing," said Federighi at yesterday's event. "Today, we
are announcing a new era for the Macs."
It's not just a new era for Macs, but for computers overall. Microsoft may
have released the Windows 8.1 upgrade as a free download (albeit one with
some technical issues), but brand new operating systems have always cost
money. Ben Bajarin, a tech analyst for Creative Strategies, said that
Microsoft may have to change the way it does things.
"Apple has forced them to do annual releases of Windows based on how
Apple releases operating systems," he told ABC News. "I don't think
Microsoft is in a position to offer Windows upgrades for free, but they
need to get much more competitive and lower prices. Even the last four
versions of OS X have been $29."
In addition to the new operating system, new versions of both the iWork
and iLife software packages are also available for Mac users free of
charge, though with a slight catch. Users won't able to download the new
programs and install them, but will need to buy new Apple devices to get
access to the new programs.
Bajarin acknowledges that new Apple devices are more expensive than
Windows machines (the new Macbook Pro starts at $1,299), but that price
tag also factors in new software updates. "The high price is justified a
little bit when a customer knows that he or she is getting software
updates for free," he said. "The total cost of ownership, both hardware
and software, is now something worth thinking about."
But while the typical home user may be satisfied with iWork's word
processor and spreadsheet programs, Microsoft Office may still be the
go-to choice for people who use it for work. "Microsoft Office will still
be there on Mac computers sold to enterprise accounts," said Bajarin.
"But Apple isn't targeting someone that lives and dies by Word and Excel.
For most mainstream consumers who only write a little bit or only have
basic spreadsheets, iWork fits their needs perfectly well."
For people who aren't looking to buy a new device just yet, the upgraded
versions of Apple's iWork applications are still available, though not for
free. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote (Apple's iWork equivalents of Word,
Excel, and Powerpoint) can be bought at $9.99 each.
Despite iWork's availability on Apple devices, Microsoft is still likely
to release a version of Office for the iPad. Carolina Milanesi, a Vice
President of Research for the technology firm Gartner, said that
Microsoft can sell Office as a complete package of software, as opposed
iWork's individual programs. "I don't think Microsoft needs to sell it
for free," she said.
However, people that do purchase new devices can also extend the newer
iWork apps to their old equipment. "Once you have it in the new device,
you can download it for other devices you have," she said. "At that
point, you own the apps and they behave like everything else in the app
store."
Google Experiments With Giant Banner Ads On Top of Search Results
Google is experimenting with enormous banner advertisements for queries
that are associated with brands. Digital marketing company Synrgy first
spotted the test after running a search for Southwest Airlines. The
search returned a large banner ad similar to a cover photo on Facebook,
followed by some top links on Southwest's website. "This is a very
limited test in the US; one of many we run," a Google spokesperson told
The Verge.
The banners might drive more traffic to the advertiser than traditional
search ads, but they also push related search results much farther down
the page than we're used to seeing on Google.
Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Isn't Impressed:
New iPad Doesn't 'Hit My Needs'
Add Steve Wozniak to the list of insta-pundits not impressed by the iPad
Air.
Wozniak, an Apple co-founder, shared his thoughts recently on his old
companys newest iPad, the iPad Air, saying hes disappointed there isnt
a larger storage model.
"I was on a plane and missed all of the keynote. When I finally took a
look at the devices, the iPads didn't hit my needs, he told an audience
at App World in London this week, according to TechRadar.
Improvements to the iPad Air from its predecessor include a bump up to
the faster, 64-bit A7 processor, and the introduction of a lighter,
thinner casing. But those new specs weren't what Wozniak was looking for,
he explained.
"Yes it's thinner, but I wanted storage. I don't have broadband at home,
and you can't get great broadband connection in hotels, so I carry all my
personal media in the iPad. So I was hoping Apple has a 256 GB iPad,"
said Wozniak. "I was hoping for more storage so I could put every episode
of 'Big Bang Theory' on my iPad. So I emailed my wife and said, 'Nope, I
don't want one of those.'"
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product
marketing, introduces the new iPad Air on Tuesday,
So why didnt Apple come forward with a 256-GB iPad? Its likely the
company hopes most users use the iCloud for content storage and
streaming, rendering all that expensive, on-board storage space
unnecessary.
A better question: Why doesnt Wozniak have broadband at home?
It's because of my lousy phone company, he told the crowd. "I can't
order a movie from iTunes and watch it straight away. I could wait for it,
but I get bored by then.
Wozniak's diss of the company he helped found isn't exactly surprising:
Steve Jobs former partner is known for being chatty when it comes to
his doubts regarding the companys activity.
In February, Wozniak told German economic news site Wirtschafts Woche
that, "Currently [Apple is], in my opinion, somewhat behind, according
to Apple Insider.
Others have caught up. Samsung is a great competitor. But precisely
because they are currently making great products," Wozniak remarked.
And Wozniak wasn't the only one complaining about the new iPad. On
Wednesday we collected the biggest complaints about the new iPad, culled
from tweets by those who were dissatisfied with the presentation.
=~=~=~=
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